Login HereAlthough there certainly is an authoritarian streak in Hugo Chavez, at least he bothered to ask:
Humbled by his first electoral defeat ever, President Hugo Chavez said Monday he may have been too ambitious in asking voters to let him stand indefinitely for re-election and endorse a huge leap to a socialist state.
"I understand and accept that the proposal I made was quite profound and intense," he said after voters narrowly rejected the sweeping constitutional reforms by 51 percent to 49 percent.
Would-be dictators are usually not quite so democratic about achieving their goals. As Charlie Savage reports in today's Boston Globe, they're usually more like this:
President Bush this month issued his first signing statement since the Democratic takeover of Congress, reserving the right to bypass 11 provisions in a military appropriations bill under his executive powers.
The principles involved here are pretty much the stuff of 10th grade civics classes. You don't have to have an advanced degree in Smelly Left Wing Hippy Studies to appreciate that there is something profoundly flawed with our larger political narrative, where Chavez plays the role of dangerous, democracy-hating strongman and Bush just wants to protect the babies from the terrorist bogeymen.
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Bravo Jane!
I got so tired of the way the media played this vote in Venezuela. Along with a bunch of really interesting proposals for the company, it simply removed term limits - it would not have made Chavez president for life but that’s sure not how it was played here.
And of course they never mentioned our coup attempt against Chavez back in ‘02
(nor do they mention the coup of Bush, eh?)
Chavez is portrayed as a thug but the thuggish behavior of the Bush administration is rarely noted in any clarified way by the traditional media. Thankfully there is at least a Charlie Savage to point out Bush’s thuggish tendencies.
Poor David Gregory, however is clutching his pearls over the political “polarization” caused by the blogs. Whiny ass titty baby. Grow up David and detox from the Villagers.
If you compare W and El Hugo directly to each other, W comes off as less Democratic and less sympathetic to the needs of his people, but not by a wide margin. But if you compare W to US constitutional traditions and to his predecessors as US President, and Hugo Chavez to Venezuelan constitutional traditions and to Chavez’s predecessors as Venezuelan president, Bush is by far the most dictatorial.
Jane! Excellent comparative poli-sci.
This is the Cuba bullshit played out all over again;
Wonderful, idyllic, workers paradise destroyed by perverted commie.
All those decades and decades of the poor and blue-collar Venezuealans being fucked over by a political oligarchy of fatcats, profiting handsomely from the country’s oil, while leaving the dregs to trickle down, not to be mentioned.
Well, for some reason George still thinks he has a “mandate”. The 2006 election says he doesn’t.
Hiya again, Jane…
I vote for Shrubco.
View this users Facebook profile AZ Matt December 3rd, 2007 at 9:57 am
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Well, for some reason George still thinks he has a “mandate”. The 2006 election says he doesn’t.
Insert Gannon joke here.
Is the intelligence community fed up with Bush too?
Breaking news from the NY Times.
and
This story should put a crimp in the Bush/Cheney plans to attack Iran.
[mod note; Along with other breaking news, this topic can be discussed in the FDL news section.]
I hate to bring this up, but I find the new site to be unreadable so I’ve switched to the RSS feed. Unfortunately the outsourced feedburner feed is no longer updating, blah. Just blah. Hate to see the good content lost in a horrid design (I know it’s not my site, but that’s my 2 cents. All I’ll say on this matter).
Nicely framed.
Jane
Thank you so much.
From Kerr’s statement:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/p…..tement.pdf
Sounds like a whole bunch o peeps over at Langley are off the reservation. Boy, would I like to be a fly on Cheney’s wall round about now.
Busted,
I refrained myself making that joke though it did cross my mind. *g*
By mandate, did you mean Karl Rove?
Doubles previous estimate of extent of communications improperly deleted
They could be anything from spam offering male enhancement to furtive exchanges of political strategy with convicted lobbyists, but observers say the White House deleted more than twice as many e-mails as previous estimates, bringing the total number of missing communications involving administration aides like Karl Rove and others to higher than 10 million.
Article here.
The vote in Venezuela this past weekend was democratic. The vote in Russia this past weekend was rigged. The vote in the US in 2000 was rigged. The vote in the US in 2004 might have been rigged.
I seem not to be able to link. The email article is over at Raw Story.
Here’s the pdf of the Iran NIE.
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/p…..elease.pdf
Cheney is duck hunting in Arkansas today. I wonder if they waited for him to leave town before announcing Iran, I repeat, Iran is not a threat.
I betcha there are a few broken coffee cups in the Office of the VP today.
-GSD
or a flea on his chest… what a ride! oogh…
OK. What gives with the dupe postings?
-G
Hey Jane. can you people indulge me off topic for a moment. I just looked at that video in the magin here with Helen Thomas and Dana Perino. The only thing that comes to my mind is “dumb as dogshit.” I think that would be a swell nickname. Dana “Dumb as Dogshit” Perino.
Thank you. Back on topic.
Oy, I wouldn’t want to be hunting with him when he gets the call on his cell that the story has broken. And whatever, the other hunters do, they should not yell “duck.”
I’m wondering if the Bush side of the prezidnazi leaked this to protect W from Cheenee; thus, an attempt at protecting his legacy…from getting any worse than it already is.
Great analogy and title that speaks volumes, Jane.
Cohen: Chavez’s Venzuela
The truth is not in Bush–CNN’s already reporting back to Bush’s over-reaching statements about Iran. Can the yellowcake be far behind? May we just say, the truth is not in Bush.
Wonder whom Chee-knee’s marked for Plaming on this one?
OT,
I found one cheat here already.
When you want to go to the Home Page, just scroll a little down past the comment box and click on Log In.
It takes you to the main page.
Saves time.
Thanks!
The misdeeds of Chavez are less serious than those of Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea or Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan — so let’s see, what is the operative difference? Wait, doesn’t Chavez oppose the interests of our big oil companies? While the others do not? Could that be why he is demonized by our media and the object of a covert intelligence war? Wait, that would mean that we are using “democracy” as a fig leaf for acting in the interests of our oil interests! So, of course, that could not be!
Yay Jane! As I said downthread a referendum that is voted does not exactly sound like The Machtergreifung. And I thank eCAHN for this link.. Because we need to be able to look at Chavez with clear eyes, not rosy-tainted and not with all the commie hating dreck that MSM can spew out.
cool! Thanks!
now, kind soul. Help me poke doggies who might know something about whether Vista Windows has any trubble with FDL, pretty please?
Here’s a link to the Brian Lehrer segment on this topic this morning. Brain seems to think, along with MSM, that Chavez was trying to become a dictator. Brian is usually more up to speed than that. The segment has some moderately interesting points and the guests are pretty good.
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/bl/e…..ents/89709
The interesting thing about Venezuela is that the people responded to the attempted coup and restored Chavez, their elected leader to office. I wonder if, under similar circumstances, we in the US could manage the energy to do the same. As for Bush v Chavez, they both seem egomaniacial. Chavez has poor people in mind while Bush is absorbed with the wealthy. That makes Chavez less malignant in my book.
Sorry Adie.
Beyond the reach of my many hammers.
Every time I show up, I am “welcomed back.” Don’t have to login.
okeydoke. thanx for answ.
Ed Zachary.
Meanwhile, CNN reporting on Brad Pitt’s new NOLAventure. While Dubya p*ssed away the national treasury on his codpiece war on Iraq, nothing’s happened in the Ninth Ward…no schools for children to attend. Big appeal coming from Pitt for help.
BushCo–a Profile in Crony Corruption and hide behind the troops Cowardice.
OT
…Made it! Finally registered! Many futile attempts…Much worth it!
I’m stuck with an experimental username, but wot the hay…
New FDL, new Emptywheel and TRex…the big bad blog bash rolls on…
Chavez was simply asking for the people to vote to allow him to run again. He was not abolishing elections. Dictators don’t hold elections or run them without an opposing candidate as Saddam did.
Brian Lehrer is not up to speed or simply a victim of the MSM swill.
Never believe anything the MSM says on face value.
From the Boston Globe signing statements article…..”Bush also challenged a new law that limits his ability to transfer funds lawmakers approved for one purpose to start a different program, as well as a law requiring him to keep in place an existing command structure for the Navy’s Pacific fleet.”
Hmmmm….now, I may be wrong, but doesn’t the existing command structure of the Navy go to the VP????? Is Bush challenging Dick???
that sounds creepy. who’s watching you, sweetie? who else?? and so on, and so on…
ah this modern age. in the ’60s I was laboriously hand-punching little notches in the edges of computer cards for a prof’s research project at an humungous, leading-edge U.
look at us now. flying blind…. mebbe if we form a V like geese, it would help…
wheeeeeeeeee………..
See also Scarecrow’s thread on Iraqi Christians [the 60 Minutes piece] earlier this morning….
BushCo specializes in smash-and-grab governing. Destroy or diminish everything they touch.
Demand better. Be better.
I guess he brought his own ducks and booze. There are no ducks, weather is too warm; and Lonoke Co is dry.
Good morning everyone :). LOVE the new place Jane and all, I’ll take a walk round later :)
Now that I feel all at home and stuff,, OT already :):)
Reading about the struggle in Russia for the ‘people’ to have a voice made me think…
There are a LOT of ‘ordinary’ people world-wide fighting (and dying) for the right to have a voice. Imagine if we could all just ‘talk’ to each other. We’d have our Jane, Christy and our ‘Heavenly Hippies’, ‘talking’ with their ‘Jane, Christy and their Heavenly Hippies’. The internet has given the ‘world’ a voice and it could become a roar….nice.
By Robert Coalson for RFE/RL (03/12/07)
‘There is an “election” going on in Russia. Not an election, but an “election.” This is not an election that falls short of international standards. It is not a democratic, a flawed-democratic, or even a pseudo-democratic process. According to a recent RFE/RL poll, nearly two-thirds of voting age Russians don’t believe the elections will be conducted honestly. Nearly half say if they do vote, it will be out of a sense of “duty.”
The Kremlin, regardless, is expending considerable effort to create the illusion of a democratic process, with the Kremlin-controlled election agencies, the Kremlin-controlled legislature, and the Kremlin-controlled media, which constantly intones the mantra that Russia is following its own democratic path, that the country has a reliable democratic system. “We don’t need helpers in organizing elections like in Africa or Kosovo,” a Central Election Commission member said in October. “We have an established democratic system.”‘
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/news/sw/
We have a function dictatorship because we have a rubber stamp congress and a roll over opposition party, an executive which follows the laws passed as THEY want to, won’t reveal the inner workings of the executive.
We are a fig leaf democracy with a rah rah press which is practically a dictatorship. No accountability means no democracy.
So they received permission to release a declassified summary…but WHICH portions THEY DECIDED TO DO WITHOUT CONTACTING BUSHCO!
Very interesting!
Bush is clearly a dick. He’s working mighty hard on the tater part too.
-GSD
P.S.
Breaking News: Al Qaeda active in Afghanistan. Sec. Def. Slappy Gates has an epiphany.
Not good news for the Ivory Billed woodpecker then.
You know, when geese fly in a V, one side is always longer than the other. Do you know why?
Link…..
-G
There’s a super tuber joke in there somewhere…
Seems to me the rationale on invading Iran was changed from WMD to deploying terrarists over the border into Iraq. I don’t think this report will deter them from bombing Iran.
Yep–automatically, unless you log out.
Also: site is a little jerky for me at the moment, and sometimes it freezes.
The techies have a lot of glitches to work out. As for readability (pace puppet head), we’ll all soon used to it. The human organism resists changes–but everything changes. It’s called life. For instance: Chimpy will soon be gone permanently and we won’t have him to kick around any more.
aerodynamics or psychiehonkics?
Can we have the EDIT feature back. pretty please
Aha, that explains that. Jane, is there any reason from your POV why we should logout? I never do.
They don’t address the longer side, but this little article seems apropos:
http://www.learningfountain.com/flyform.htm
Drop him off on my block,I’ll handle it.
Busharraf is very proud and works very hard in becoming the ‘bestest’ dictator. See?
cookies cookies cookies
By this time next year, we’ll have a REALLY clear idea of the differences between Bush and Chavez. I doubt that anybody reading FDL would be completely surprised if something happened to thwart the electoral process in the next year or thirteen months.
We’ll all be quite pleased if Bush totters quietly off to become Commissioner of Baseball (for which the White House is obviously a steppingstone). But I, for one, will not be astonished if for one reason or another Bush, or Cheney, or some neocon puppet ends up in charge of the U.S. in February 2009, with elections held in abeyance for that happy future day when victory can be declared over terrorism.
demi (if you’re here):
Check your Facebook…
TMI. Mine was a joke. The leg of the V that is longer is so because there are more birds in it.
But I’ll check out your reference to actually learn something. Thanks.
cc,
Had the same problem myself. When you click on the link it will show up in the repsonse box but not retain the second box that allows you to write in the title on your link. What you have to do is go the the link showing in your comment box and type in between “>. For example: >The Raw Story. Then when you submit your comment the link will show up.
And, is anyone else having trouble using “Preview”?
This happens when you double click the “Click here to load [new comments]!” link. Click it once, not twice.
LS,
I think I understand what you’re asking here. IIRC, the VP is considered in charge of the Navy WHEN they are in port in the CONUS. The Pacific Fleet command structure is probably outside of that but would be something Darth would prol’ly like to change.
Of course, I amy also be an id10t.
Yo, Jane, the new blog is too high bandwidth. Can hardly read it anymore, and I have cable modem.
Adie - we’ve tested Vista and found no problems. You might try clearing your cache?
If folks have specific problems with the new site, please drop us a line at my FDL email - media dot firedoglake at gmail dot com with “Bug Report” in the subject line and I’ll check the issues out with Jamie.
Given the past behavior of the Demo leadership, the Republicans would be clinically insane if they didn’t try to steal as much as they can in 2008.
cc,
Damn that didn’t show up. There: > between these symbols < a / >.
On linking - here’s an easier way:
Type in the text you want to show as the link. For example:
type “google”
the select that text and click the little link icon in the bar at the top of the comment box (it’s between the quote and the spellcheck) and when the link popup appears, just paste in the link and you get this:
google
I’m shocked!!!
link
What is the thing next to the “link” that looks like an umbilical cord clamp?
Well, I finally figured out the blockquote gizmo.
Paste and highlite what you want to quote and THEN hit the quote marks, does it for you, just like Blogger.
If you link to Google it should always be to “GoogleSSR” or “Google SSR” (or GSSR for that matter if you want to save space) - it’s much more fitting then Google or Googleplex, and also ties in well with all the totalitarian talk - especially with ads by doubleclick.
Nice new digs. Best of luck.
Hugh - EPU’ing will never fade away. Evah. Ponies for me (as always).
I hate to admit that I actually kind of miss The Spinning Wheel Of Doom.
I couldn’t read it either, till TexBetsy pointed out that you can make it larger with control + (or apple key?). Helps!
Thank you Siun. We don’t have it yet - should in a few days, and we have abundant knowledgeable techie support from sweet sweet guy in our family, so I guess I should stop worrying. He’s promised to dash right over & get us up and running smoothly with the pack.
I just thot I’d heard rumors that Vista was kinda hard to get used to, and I was fearing problems. my silly geriatric worry-wartiness acting up agin, i guess…
p.s., I’m so happy to see you having a larger presence at the Lake. I hope all is going as smoothly as possible for you. Figure it must be huge pressure at the moment. You’re a treasure! ;->
You can’t lose emails.
Blue Texan is upstairs
Same here. That’s when I know a new post is going up, then I rush to go grab the zed…
Figures, I make a crack about the wheel of doom;
Oh my. I hope one of the FDLakers didn’t leave one of their unmentionables in there. LOL Just kidding…
Here it is;
Well, you can if you’re putting your emails through the RNC servers. See? Nothing gets recorded that way and the hard drives can be encased in cement and sunk to the bottom of the ocean. This is how all republic presidents do business. It’s very Mob-like.
trying something
ok.
Fear not. Unless the Iranians do something stupid
w/Israel the neo-cons are out in the cold looking in.
Poppy’s people have taken over US foreign policy.
This isn’t the Cheney/Bush administration anymore.
Since the blue wave of ‘06 it’s been the (James)Baker/Bush
admin…
The thing that worries me is that I often see - in the Israeli press - editorials complaining that the US is being too slow on Iran and boasting that Israel may just have to show Uncle Sam how it’s done.
Today’s news certainly helps - a lot - but the dynamic is still messy.
“Preview” doesn’t “preview”, period. It just shows you what you already had. So, no, you don’t find out whether your HTML works properly before you submit. It also uses the same window for the ‘preview’ display as for the typing, so even if it did show the result of interpreting your tags, you still couldn’t edit and update conveniently. (Trying to keep a lid on, here …)
well, aren’t you proud?!
(i was doin’ a lot of that yestidie. & i think we have plenty company, heh)
It’s happening to me with one click.
thanks. i figured that might be the case. calm down. breathe deeply.
there y’go. ;->
damn, already epu’d
It’s a gift.
It’s just that it got a lot smaller and lives in the middle of the commenting window; it also turns the other way, as far as I remember.
Then maybe the problem is browser specific. I’m using a mac and FireFox and preview has been working jut fine. I get the draft comment displayed between “Leave your response” and the comment box. and it has shown any links, bold, whatever just as it shows in the thread once submitted.
I’m finding that just about every blog I’ve been on today is loading slowly. I have Firefox and DSL (mine is pretty damn fast too).
But I do very much like Google.S.S.R. and hope it catches on. I just wanted to throw it out into the blogosphere for priority once all the kewl kids are using it (of course that assumes it’s original, which it may not be, but nothing showed up on the first page of a googleSSR search).
Google was asked by an analyst about the amount of energy their servers consume, and the response was basically that that information is a state secret. Like a Soviet republic, nothing is ever wrong in googleland, or public.
It’s just that I’ve been doing this beta-test stuff for, what, two or three decades, and when stuff that wasn’t broken in version x is broken in (x+1) …
I ain’t clickin nothin I don’t know about yet.
Jes happily lurkin and lettin other pups mess up first.
Oh, btw, anyone see my tshirt? I think I left it at the old site.
It’s the one with the peace sign….oh nevermind.
Adie, I run Vista on my laptop and FDL looks and feels exactly the same on it as it does on my XP desktop.
Do a browser level refresh and then single click. That should clear the problem (unless there’s actually something else at work here).
With both XP and Vista, using Firefox and IE, the preview is not working for me. Hasn’t since the switchover.
Behindthefall - we’ve reviewed the issues you’ve raised - in fact, we worked on that yesterday. If I recall, you are using Opera as your browser. Please empty your cache and then try again. Opera has a number of issues which may lead to the problems you’re having.
Preview text shows directly above your comment box by the way and we’ve changed the text to make sure it is more visible than it was when we launched on Saturday.
Bilbo,
Come over from the darkside and join us in the light (Mac OS)!
By the way, even with the proposed “sweeping changes”, Chavez would still be less of a dictator than George W. Bush: